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Lucivar yanked the pick out of the guard’s belly and drove it into the h the uard’shis teeth in a feral smile, he snapped the chains that had held hiray Jewels and the wide leather belt that held his hunting knife and his Eyrien war blade A lot of foolish Queens over the centuries had tried to force him to surrender those weapons He’d endured the punishment and the pain and had never admitted they were alithin reach--at least until he used the the war blade, he ran toward the uards died before they realized he was there

The next two blew apart when he struck with the Ebon-gray

The rest were entangled by frantic slaves trying to get out of the way of an enraged Warlord Prince

Fighting his way clear of the tangled bodies, he reached the mine entrance and ran across the slave co hi that, like an arrow released froht and true to the closest Wind and freedo of Obedience shredded his concentration at the sa his stride Howling with rage, he unleashed a wide band of power through his Ebon-gray ring, ripping the pursuing guards apart, body and h hi, braced hie of power at Zuultah’s house

The house exploded Stones s stopped abruptly Lucivar probed swiftly and swore The bitch was alive Stunned and hurt, but still alive He hesitated, wanting that kill A weak strike at his inner barriers pulled his attention back to the surviving guards They ran toward hith in order to overwhelm him

Fools He could tear the pain back with pain, but by now someone would have sent out a call for help and if Zuultah ca of Obedience

Battle lust sang in his veins, nu, to turn the Arava Desert into a sea of blood The closest Wind was a long, blind leap away But, Hell’s fire, if Jaenelle could do it when she was seven, then he could do it now

Blood So much blood

Bitterness centered hi one athered hiainst the well, Lucivar filled the dipper again with sweet, cool water and drank slowly, savoring every s Filling the dipper a last time, he limped to the nearby remains of a stone wall and settled himself as comfortably as possible

That blind leap into the Darkness had cost hih the Ring of Obedience just as he’d launched hith in his Ebon-gray Jewelsthe desperate reach for the Winds

He sipped the water and stubbornly ignored what his body screaer Pain A desperate need to sleep

A hunting party from Pruul was three, maybe four hours behind him He could have lost thee relayed froh Priestess, faster than he could travel right now, and he didn’t want to be caught by Eyrien warriors before he reached the Khaldharon Run

And, if at all possible, there was a debt he wanted to call in

Lucivar secured the dipper to the well and e was as he’d found it, he faced south and sent out a sue

"Sadi!"

He waited a minute, then turned to face southeast

"Sadi!"

After another restless minute, he turned east

"Sadi!"

A flicker Faint, different sohed like a satisfied lover It was a fitting place for the Sadist to go to ground--inthose ruins Soh to use as a , he caught the Red Wind and headed east -

Except for stories about Andulvar Yaslana, Lucivar had never had much interest in history But Daemon had once

insisted that SaDiablo Hall in Terreille had been intact until about 1,600 years ago, that so--that had broken the preservation spells that had held for ’s decay

Treading carefully through the broken ruins, Lucivar thought Daeht There was a deep ey had been deliberately bled out The stones felt dead No, not dead Starved Every time he touched one as he made his way toward an inner courtyard, it felt as if the stone was trying to suck his strength into itself